


he sings to me real low

by The_Blonde_and_the_Brunette



Series: Ghastly Serenade [3]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Attempted Strangling, Budding Romance, Budding relationships, Choking, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M, PTSD, gender neutral reader, grey honor Arthur, gunfight, if you want to grab reader and Arthur and just make the idiots kiss by the end of this i did my job, it's pew pew time bitches, oh boy, sad cowboy noises, we're getting to the GOOD stuff folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blonde_and_the_Brunette/pseuds/The_Blonde_and_the_Brunette
Summary: “I want you on back guard,” he said without preamble, eyes cutting over to your face, though you only nodded acceptance of his decision. “Charles and Sean are real scrappy in a fight, but ain’t no sense in us all being in the thick of it without someone to guard our backs.”You nodded again, gaze set steadily on the shifting hindquarters of Ennis in front of you, and reached down to make sure your gun was still in its holster. If Arthur noticed the nervous movement, he blessedly kept quiet.*Arthur takes the Kid on a job*
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Reader
Series: Ghastly Serenade [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136177
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	he sings to me real low

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys... remember all those other things I reeeeaaallly need to finish. Yea? Well, here's more sad, angry grey honor Arthur I'm so sorry.
> 
> Also, beware, the violence isn't like super gory or anything, but Reader does get almost strangled by an O'Driscoll. Sorry for spoilers, but I don't want to trigger someone.
> 
> title is from Kate McCannon by Colter Wall

The loud crunch of dried dirt under spurred heels pulled your attention away from the slim novel you had propped open on your knee, the bottle blue cover flopping shut as you shifted on your bedroll to face the tread you instantly recognized.

Arthur chuckled when your head popped up, the easy sound carrying through the early morning mist. “There’s the kid,” it was said with a faint curl of affection, not an insult that the mocking tilt of his head conveyed as he came to a stop just beyond the shadow of your tent. “You up for a job?”

“Course,” you rasped back, clearing your throat as his amusement grew. “What we doin?” You sat up and stretched until your spine quivered with the effort, squinted eyes watching as Arthur’s eyes flickered away.

He hummed in place of an answer, took two steps and nudged the lump of blankets laid out in the tent beside yours none too gently with the toe of his boot. The mop of red hair attached grunted, and Arthur nudged him again.

“C’mon, Mr. MacGuire, need you ‘fer a job.” Turning back to you, he leaned against the pole attached to your tent and answered. “Charles saw a pocket o’ O’Driscolls on his last hunt, figured we need to go clear ‘em out.” He gestured at Sean again, “Meet me by the horses you two.” He hoisted himself upright, waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the horses, and headed towards the ammunition stash behind his own wagon.

You frowned slightly as he marched off, set your novel carefully aside, and pulled your boots towards you, grabbing your spurs from their perch on the tent stake.

“Odd, innit,” Sean groused, and your frown turned to amusement as you watched him sit up and stretch. “Ol’ Morgan don’t usually like you round the gunfights.”

You rolled your eyes, refused to meet his curiously devious gaze as you shook out your boots before jamming them on, grabbed your belt, checked your gun was clean and loaded before standing. “C’mon, Sean, Ain’t no reason to piss Morgan off by lollygaggin.”

You left him grumbling as he fumbled for his boots, and moved across the wakening camp towards your horse, easily picking out his sorrel coat as the rising sun gleamed off his hide.

“Mornin, Charles,” you said clearly when you saw him already mounted on Taima, and hurried to follow suit, offering your horse a carrot to occupy him as you tacked up. You heard the sound of Sean behind you, talking low and soft to his flashy buckskin.

It wasn’t until you had tightened the front cinch and slipped your foot into the stirrup to mount that you heard the familiar gait of Arthur as he rounded the back of your gelding, a long shiny rifle over his shoulder. He absentmindedly caught your waist, pushing you upwards into the saddle.

You caught Sean’s raised eyebrows over the back of his saddle, and your cheeks started to burn as Arthur patted your thigh before moving towards Gunsmoke, the grey warhorse already tacked and waiting as patiently as he could.

You pulled your hat low to hide your face, hissed angrily at Sean as the man snorted loudly. He stopped at the low look Arthur threw his way from atop Gunsmoke, and just barely caught the saddlebag the older man tossed at him.

“We ride north a ways, then turn west,” Charles broke in, voice calm and purposely unaffected. “They were camped on the banks of Dewberry Creek.”

Arthur nodded and led the group out of camp, taking the lead until they reached the main road. There he allowed Charles to pull ahead, and for once Sean took the hint and urged his horse to lengthen its stride as the senior gunman dropped back next to you.

“I want you on back guard,” he said without preamble, eyes cutting over to your face, though you only nodded acceptance of his decision. “Charles and Sean are real scrappy in a fight, but ain’t no sense in us all being in the thick of it without someone to guard our backs.”

You nodded again, gaze set steadily on the shifting hindquarters of Ennis in front of you, and reached down to make sure your gun was still in its holster. If Arthur noticed the nervous movement, he blessedly kept quiet.

“It’ll be over pretty quickly,” he murmured, eyes away once more as he watched a white-tailed doe bound across the road. “But I was thinking we could go up to Emerald Ranch afterward, can’t head straight back to camp.”

You tilted your head, eyes tracking over the man next to you, trying to read his intent between the stiffness in his shoulders and the tightness of his knuckles on the reins.

“Maybe… we could go hunting near the wash, ‘for coming back?” You said back casually, watched as his lips pursed in consideration, the brim of his hat ducking to shield his eyes.

“Mighty far trip for just a couple of deer and a few ducks. Might need to go up into the mountains to make sure Pearson’s well stocked.”

“He… gets a little anxious?”

“Bloomin bastard forgets we ain’t stuck on a goddamn ship in the middle of the sea!”

Sean obviously thought he was contributing to the conversation, though his loud and raucous voice only succeeded in causing a flock of birds to startle out of a nearby tree. You watched as Arthur’s head snapped up, mouth already curling around a wicked snarl, but the laugh you’d been holding at the irishman’s quip burst out like water through a small hole in a dam, bubbling until it took down the whole structure.

“Sean, you’re being incessant. Again.” Charles informed him, urging Taima ahead. Sean made a thick noise in the back of his throat at the perceived abuse, and clicked to Ennis to follow after, voice raising once again in an effort to convince Charles that he was in fact, _not_ incessant.

The laughter finally died back, and turned into coughs. You dug behind you vainly for your canteen, missed the swinging bottle twice before you heard a resounding sigh beside you and the careful nudge of Arthur passing his own over.

A grin twitched at the corner of your lips as you accepted, took a long sip, and then glanced back over.

Arthur’s head tilted just slightly, one careful eye peeping out, and you grinned back boldly, twisted the cap on and held it back out to him.

When his hand tightened over the neck, you shook the bottle slightly in his grip, and that careful eye became two as wry amusement twitched at his mouth.

“I like the mountains,” you said, a little too loudly, and felt that damn heat steal across your cheeks again.

Arthur only chuckled, the sound soft and deep in his chest, and took the canteen back, urging Gunsmoke faster, your own horse changing gait quickly.

An hour later you were on your stomach between Arthur and Charles, peering over a low ridge and into the camp below.Arthur had a pair of binoculars out, his breath slow and even as he counted under his breath.

“One, two, three, five. There’s five,” he whispered, returning the binoculars to Charles.“Ok, here’s what we do. Charles, see if you can sneak around through the creek and come up the other side, hopefully we’ll catch em with their pants down.”

Charles nodded and silently shuffled backwards, disappearing into the tall grass within half a dozen heartbeats.

“Kid,” Arthur continued, and you whipped back around from watching Charles go, “stay here, keep an eye on the wide picture. Any try to run, then you’re up.”

You nodded, belatedly wondered if that was even likely as you eyed the two guns Sean had unholstered, but Arthur was already talking again.

“Sean, you’re with me. Stay low til I signal.”

“Aye, Aye, Captain,” the irishman sassed, eyes already alight with fever, and you watched as they silently slipped over the ridge and descended on the camp.

You let out a long breath, unholstered your gun, and waited.

True to form, the O’Driscolls were caught unaware until Arthur’s first shot, and you flinched slightly as the report rang out and an answering hole ate through the face of one unlucky man, the red splatter behind him lost as he dropped like a ton of rocks.

You remained riveted on the fallen man, watching as Arthur casually strolled by him, and flinched as two more shots rang out, eyes quickly flickering towards the movement as a dark haired man bolted between the trees, his green bandana a vivid target as Dutch’s boys closed in.

Heart in your throat, breath ragged, you watched as Sean popped up and fired three times, an O’Driscoll jerking almost comically as his aim proved true.

The next man to go down slumped with a ragged cry, an arrow pierced through the back of his coat as Charles fired silently over the bank of the creek. The slighter figure next to him started violently, and Sean’s bullet went careening past him as he fell backwards on his hands and knees.

He turned and ran, unknowingly straight towards where you were hiding.

You saw Arthur’s head turn, mouth opening to yell something at Sean before his gun came up to track the boy’s movement across the field, and a blossom of panic strangled you.

For now you could plainly see he was a boy, maybe with only a year on you. You lurched suddenly to your feet, an unformed thought racing through your brain as you popped up twenty feet in front of him.

Surprise colored his face for a near instant, and you opened your mouth, tongue stuck to the roof as you held your gun loose at your side, hand shaking so badly you were surprised you hadn’t dropped it. There was a sound, a distant roar starting up as you each eyed one another over the bank of dead grass.

“Duck!” The word exploded out of you, a crack in the roar, and surprisingly the boy listened, and Arthur’s shot tore into the bushes just to your left. 

You flinched violently, stared appalled at where the bullet had kicked up dust, the shake in your hands started to travel up your arms as you turned to stare down at the crouched figure.

Your breath rattled your teeth with every inhale, the ringing in your ears muffling everything but the faint roar. When your eyes flickered to Arthur, you realized the roar was him, his mouth moving as he raced towards you both, gun coming up once more.

“Run,” you croaked at the boy as he found his feet, and you took a stumbled step towards him.

You were a fool, but it wasn’t apparent until the boy lunged, his grip like iron as he took you both down. The gun fell to the side as he smashed your hand and head against the ground, your free hand a mad scramble for the back of his jacket in an attempt to unbalance him.

You yelled, stars dancing across your vision, thrashing as you instinctively tried to buck him off.He tightened his grip however, palms sticky as he snapped them up to your throat and started to squeeze.

Your yell became a wheeze as he applied pressure, and you pulled your legs under you, pushing against the ground as you squirmed under him, hands coming up in a sweeping motion to break his grip.

He fell to the side, scrambled in the dirt, and you turned slightly, cursing as he managed to pin an elbow under your chin. Your legs kicked out, caught against his thigh, but before you could use the momentum to slide away he was back on top of you, knees digging into your stomach as his full weight pushed down with his elbow.

Your vision quickly became spotty, then grey, and you heaved to the side, unable to knock him off again. The distant roar was becoming louder, the pain in your aching lungs feeding the panic as black started to eat the grey field your vision had become. Something wet dripped on your face, breath fanned your cheeks as the boy leaned over you -

“You stupid-” His hiss of words, almost lost in the ringing and roaring, cut off with his head, the sharp call of a gunshot splattering his lifeblood across the ground and your prone form.

You heaved, blessed air running down your throat, tunneling into your abused lungs, only to strangle and choke as your inflamed airways bloomed. You reflexively took another painful breath, gasping and wheezing loudly, and coughed again. The weight of the body over you was suddenly too heavy, too much for your panicking mind -

You weakly pushed him off, drug yourself away, staring in horror at what was left of the young face. The ringing in your ears buzzing to the point of being unbearable as you opened your mouth and gagged sharply, tasting blood, before twisting to hide your face against the rough earth, hands shaking badly as they came up to block your eyes.

Hands jerked your shoulder, pulling you away and across the dirt, and you flinched, staring up into the ashen face thundering above you.

His mouth moved, harsh, dark lines between his hard eyes, and you might have pieced together what he was saying, if only you could get enough air back in your lungs. You tried vainly to pull away from his anger, heels scraping against the dirt, but his shaking fist clenched too tightly on the twitching muscles of your arm, held you captive as he gestured wildly at the boy.

You weren’t even conscious of what happened next, but you struck out, and Arthur was either too angry or too distracted to dodge your sloppy punch. He released you, head snapping to the side with the force of your blow, and you sat still on the dirt where he dropped you, staring silently at the blood coating the ground beneath his feet.

“Arthur!” Charles worried shout pierced the air, broke through the ringing in your ears, and you became aware of the hot, wet tracks running down either side of your face.

“We’re fine, Charles!” Arthur called back, his voice strange, hoarse and flat, his fists curled tightly at his sides.

Charles suddenly appeared through the tall grass, bow slung across his back, and started for them with a long, determined stride. “You don’t look fine, either one of you.”

“We’re fine,” You had never heard Arthur snarl that way at Charles, and the man stopped, blinked slowly and leveled a long look between the two of you, one that you refused to meet, before turning to the body slumped to the side.

“What happened?” His question was level, fair, but you hunched in tighter, turned your head stubbornly away.

You heard Arthur sigh above you, the sound bone tired, and then the slow drag of his feet as he took a step away.

“We better split up,” he finally said, sounding distant.“Charles, take the kid back to camp, I’ll go tell Sean to get lost.” Your head wanted to snap up, wanted to stop him from leaving, wanted to say a thousand different things, but in the end you sat silent, head down until Charles nudged you softly with he back of his hand.

“C’mon, let’s get you back to camp.”

That half formed idea was back, beating itself to pieces at the edge of your mind instead of becoming clearer, and it wasn’t until you blinked and found yourself seated atop your gelding that the words came out, almost unbidden.

“I’m not going back to camp.”

Charles didn’t look surprised, but he stepped Taima closer, eyes dark and unjudging as he took you in, “Arthur-”

“ _I don’t give a damn what Arthur wants_ ,” you snarled, broke off to cough, uncaring that you had to take a moment before speaking again. “I’m old enough to be out on my own for a while, know how to get good and lost, proper.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.” He said it calmly enough, as though the thought of you disappearing for good wouldn’t bother him, though his eyes saddened at the way your own flickered away again.

You stared off to the side, took a deep breath, willed your arms to stop shaking. “I’ll turn up in a couple days. But I can’t-”

You broke off, bit your lip hard enough to break through, and tried again. “I’ll see you in a couple days, Charles.” You said it as slow and steady as you dared, turning your horse to face the opposite direction and setting heels to its flank without looking back at him.

Charles let you go, though you could feel the warm weight of his stare on your back until your gelding carried you over a hill and into a copse of trees on the other side.

You paused long enough at a stream to refill your canteen and scrub the worst of the blood off your skin and from your clothes. You paused, staring at the raw skin of your hands, and allowed yourself to think for a moment.

It was obvious what had happened, even to you, and you wondered again why you had even been picked for the job. Why had Arthur picked you, especially since you had never been in a firefight before. The closest you had ever come was the robbery with Micah…

You shied away from that memory, shut down your rambling train of thought, and turned to your horse.

“Think he didn’t really think this through, neither?” Your voice was starting to croak, the swelling of your vocal cords and throat settling into their bruises and stiffness.

His ears perked at your voice, nickered low in askance.

“Ah, you’re prolly right.” He’d dangled that hunting trip in front of you, looking to get away, the first time you’d be alone since sleeping together in the church ruin. _And you’d punched him…_

Unbidden, his face came back, ashen and looming over you.

Your fist tightened where it rested on your thigh, and you stared down at it, thinking hard.

“Sean will head for Rhodes for sure, the dumb ass. Charles won’t go back to camp, not for a couple of days, he likes being alone too much. And Arthur…” you paused, relaxed your fist, then clenched again, “chances are he’ll head up to the mountains, he always did like O’Creaghs Run.”

Your horse blinked dolefully as though to say you were absolutely right, and you found yourself smiling in spite of the ache at the edge of your mouth.

“Guess that means we head West. You feel up to headin to Valentine?”

You moved to mount him again, turning to follow the sun as it soared across the sky. “Let’s get there today, and I’ll spring to board you in the stables.”

Your horse nickered in answer, his gait lengthening into a lively canter, and you dropped your head down, content to let him pick his way as long as it was west. And if by the time you two reached Valentine his neck was crusty from the salt of dried tears, he’d keep that quiet too.


End file.
